Protection Paladin Quick Start Guide

This Protection Paladin Guide is intended for new players just trying out the spec, casually raiding or working on max-level quests like class mounts, or for someone who hasn't played the spec in awhile and wants a quick brush up on what to do. If you are looking for more in-depth information, check out the other guide sections listed on the right-hand side of this page, or the community Discords.

Talents

Here are some simple builds for new Protection Paladins. These are good all-around builds, but a more in-depth look at talents, as well as more niche recommendations for advanced situations, can be found on the Protection Talent Guide.

Raids

This build is focused primarily on raiding.

Mythic + / Questing

This build is focused on Mythic + and Open World Content.

Stats

Gear

Fresh 110s in Legion can gear up pretty quickly (~910 ilvl) between World Quests, Relinquished Tokens from Veiled Argunite, Heroic Dungeons, and PvP. Give our Legion Gearing Before Raids guide a read to learn which avenue of acquiring gear sounds the most interesting for you. Any gear can proc Warforged or Titanforged ilvl gains, so gear from any source can be a huge upgrade for new players.

Legendaries are difficult to distill into a simple recommendation, and multiple are useful, so check out the Protection Gear Guide for more details.

Artifact

Thanks to the Artifact Knowledge catch-up mechanisms added in 7.3, you'll be able to empower your artifact exceptionally quickly even if this is your first 110, acquiring the first three golden traits with little effort.

As all level 110 players are above Artifact Knowledge 40 in Patch 7.3, there are truly massive gains, allowing players to acquire numerous traits with one AP token. Artifact paths are less important in 7.3 as you'll be able to grab every possible trait, but we have included recommended paths in case you are struggling to earn Artifact Power.

For Protection Paladins the current recommended artifact path is this:

After that you can chose the last traits in any order.

After you acquire 35 traits:

Don't forget to socket your third relic slot when you hit 110. Patch 7.3 removed the quest requirements to unlock this slot. Acquiring the third relic will greatly increase the item level of your weapon and give you another free trait rank in the Netherlight Crucible.

Netherlight Crucible

Once a player has unlocked the Netherlight Crucible on one character, any character that unlocks the Vindicaar can access the Crucible and put points into the Tier 1 Trait: Netherlight Fortification. Do this to earn +15 ilvls onto your artifact.

Players with 60-75 purchased traits can unlock additional Crucible relic traits. Because your choice in Tier 2 affects which traits you can reach in Tier 3, you need to balance both the Tier 2 and Tier 3 bonuses when you make your Tier 2 choice.

However, the Crucible is complicated and the value of traits will shift based on the situation and gear. Make sure to check out the detailed Artifact Page or Netherlight Crucible page for the full list of traits.